Uhhh… You Want Fries With That?
If you’re a runner but have never heard of ultramarathoning or Dean Karnazes, I highly recommend his book Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner.
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I won’t spoil the book, but suffice it to say that I bought it after I saw a piece about him on 60 Minutes in which he talked about going blind while running, running for 24 hours straight, running an ultramarathon during the summer in Death Valley (where you have to run on the white line on the road, otherwise your shoes will melt), etc. You know, stuff we all do from time to time.
To summarize, he’s either (1) a freak of nature, or (2) crazier than a shithouse rat. Maybe both.
Anyway, he’s in the news today because he’s about to accomplish his goal of running 50 marathons in 50 states… in 50 days. Yes, you read that correctly.
As I’ve already noted, these guys (and women) are crazy. To prove it, here’s an excerpt from that story:
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Death by treadmill — almost
Chris Bergland lost two toenails running alongside Karnazes in 2004. His big ones popped off at the cuticle. The two were attempting to break the world record for the most distance run in 24 hours on a treadmill.
“I started peeing ketchup at mile 110,” Bergland says. “I didn’t know what that meant but my kidneys were shutting down.”
With eight minutes to go Bergland collapsed. He got up and stumbled his way to the record — 153.76 miles. Then he went straight to the hospital. He says the doctors were furious and he wasn’t released for four days.
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The alternate title for this post is: If He Was in Mexico, It Would Have Been Gazpacho
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